Missouri woman accused of abandoning man’s corpse

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

Missouri woman accused of abandoning man’s corpse

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) – A 55-year-old woman has been charged with abandonment of a corpse after a decaying body was found in a Columbia apartment.

Prosecutors filed the charge Tuesday against Deborah Berardi, of Columbia, who is jailed in Boone County on $20,000 bond. No attorney is listed for her in online court records.

Columbia police said in a news release that her arrest Tuesday night during a traffic stop on Interstate 70 came one day after the body of 60-year-old Steven Summa was discovered. The probable cause statement said he appeared to have been dead several days before an employee of a property management company found his body.